By Meghan Bowden
Here’s a little secret about me: I’m a southern girl at heart. I love grits, sweet tea, collard greens and heat. Thankfully the David Dorfman Dance (DDD) southeast tour has all of the above, minus the heat (but the crisp fall air is so refreshing after that scorching summer, I’ll take it!)
Currently DDD just arrived at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC after a wonderful few days at Coker College in Hartsville, SC. The entire company hasn’t been together since the whirlwind of our summer performances ended in mid-August with an exuberant six-night run at Jacob’s Pillow that, personally nearly killed me, but also got us all into great shape to take on the south.
FIVE CITIES
2 ½ WEEKS
2 ½ DAYS AT EACH STOP
ONE DAY TO TECH
SHOWTIME!
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| DDD outside the Midnight Rooster in Hartsville, SC |
We also have at least three residency activities at each location. I often find that these close encounters with the students and local residents can generate some of the most rewarding experiences on the road. The intense time re-imagining and developing repertory with students is especially invigorating. It breathes new life into our current work, Prophets of Funk, and greatly informs our work in progress inspired by the music of Patti Smith.
How many students did you work with and how long did you have to rehearse?
15 students. We only had five days, with ninety minute rehearsals each day.
What DDD repertory were you referencing?
We were work-shopping brand new ideas for a piece inspired by Patti Smith music.
How did you choose the participants?
The participants were chosen by NYU staff during an audition process that placed them according to their technique classes. I typically work with the students who are not from NYU, and therefore grouped separately from the other "levels". I love working with that particular group because there is a great variety of movement backgrounds, hometowns (sometimes coming from different countries), interests and ages.
I am not a big fan of choosing performers or creators within an auditioning paradigm. However, when we (Renuka Hines and I) were determining who would partake in speaking parts, solo material, or particularly highlighted "roles", we made decisions from their improvisatory choices that stood out to us.
How do you decide how and what to teach?
Renuka and I taught based on our availability, which was dictated by our non-David (bill-paying) jobs. For that particular residency, we took inspiration from only Patti Smith music and some photos of her.
Throughout that residency, we taught technique classes separately from the repertory classes. Teaching David's repertory is unique in that we never teach purely replicated work as it exists on a video or through counts and formations. We may use excerpts from theatrical structure, specific themes or movement phrases to create a student work.
Alternatively, I have always felt a generous invitation from David to draw out a student's proclivities and to highlight their strengths. I learned this from him and he is a master at it. He really does see people within their dancing. Ironically, there also exists an implicit invitation to challenge a person and sometimes this means encouraging him or her to do what they aren't sure about, have never done before, or that which they feel like they aren't "good" at.
What do you emphasize as far as movement and creative choices in the process, be it in class or rehearsal?
I try to stay off-vertical because watching someone determine their center while unstable is intriguing. When choreographing I try to avoid material that is residue from other works of David's, unless it is worth reiterating thematically.
What is your most memorable repertory experience?
My most memorable experience would be when I was a student at Arizona State in 2004. It was a unique residency that combined high school students, college students, and David. I consider it the beginning of my dance career in some ways, as it came at a crucial moment in which I was considering leaving dance completely to pursue sustainable agriculture and housing.
What are two lessons you have learned from building repertory with students?
1. It pays to give as much as you can, to remember what it’s like to experience DDD-style movement for the first time, and to look for the more subtle things around myself.
WHITNEY LYNN TUCKER is from the hills of southern Illinois, and moved to New York in 2006. She graduated magna cum laude from Arizona State University with a B.F.A. in Dance Education. Her interests over time have led her to study Capoeira, Contact Improvisation, various lineages of yoga, boxing, and social dance. She draws from experiences as a public school teacher (Vancouver, WA) and from those as the creator/facilitator of a movement-program for women who were recovering from prostitution (Phoenix, AZ). When she's not dancing, she is working as a labor doula or teaching at Studio 26, an Eco-friendly fitness + wellness center she co-founded in 2010. Visit her at studio26nyc.com.
"Sly and the Family Stone was one of the first racially and gender-integrated bands in American music history and a solid purveyor of social consciousness...'Prophets of Funk' lifts up the spirit of Sly - that in the face of the funk of life, there are still hopes and aspirations that reside in all of us...The audience should be prepared to have great difficulty resisting the temptation to move and sing along with this incredible, ahead-of-its-time music. Dress comfortably - even funk-ally - as you may find yourself on stage dancing by the evening's end.”
